by Lee Child
“Conspiracies,” Westwood said.
“What kind of thing?”
“It’s a fairly wide category.”
“Give me an example.”
“Smoke alarms are compulsory in homes because they contain cameras and microphones wirelessly linked to the government. With poison gas capsules too, in case the government doesn’t like what you’re saying or doing.”
“Keever wouldn’t waste time on a thing like that.”
“And I wouldn’t ignore something more serious.”
“Maybe it wasn’t well explained.”
“I guess it can’t have been.”
“You sure you don’t remember this Maloney guy at all?”
As a response Westwood clicked his way through to an unfiltered list of all the calls he had received. The screens were big and he had two of them, but even so there was space only for a small part of the calendar year.
Reacher said, “Are we in there?”
Westwood nodded. “From this morning.”
“What folder did you put us in?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Chang took out her phone and dialed Maloney’s number. The 501 area code, and seven more digits. She put her phone on speaker. There was hiss and dead air as the cellular system hooked her up. Then the number rang.
And rang, and rang.
No answer, and no voice mail.
Chang hung up, after a whole long minute, and the office went quiet.
Reacher said, “We need to know where the 501 area code is.”
Westwood clicked off his database and opened up a web browser. Then he glanced at the door and said, “So I guess we’re really doing this.”
“No one will know,” Reacher said. “Until the movie comes out.”
The computer told them 501 was one of three area codes given to cell phones in Arkansas. Chang said, “Was there an Arkansas number you blocked about nine weeks ago? Maybe our guy switched from his land line to his cell, simple as that.”
Westwood went back into his database, to the unfiltered list of calls, and he scrolled back nine weeks, and said, “How much limbo should we give him? How fast would he have come up with the idea of changing his name and number?”
“Pretty fast,” Reacher said. “It isn’t brain surgery. But I’m guessing there was some limbo. Most likely because of hurt feelings. You rejected him. It might have taken him a week to swallow his pride and call you back.”
Westwood scrolled some more. Ten weeks back. He opened the list of area codes on his second screen, and went back and forth, comparing, line by line, and when he was finished he said, “I blocked four guys that week. But none of them was from Arkansas.”
Reacher said, “Try the week before. Maybe he’s more sensitive than we thought.”
Westwood scrolled again, backward through the next seven days, and then forward again, checking against the list of area codes, and he said, “I blocked two guys the previous week, for a fourteen-day total of six, but still no one from Arkansas.”
Reacher said, “We’re getting somewhere anyway. The Maloney calls started nine weeks ago, from a guy who had just gotten blocked, in a recent window of time, and in that category there are six possible candidates. Logic says our guy is one of them. And we could be talking to him thirty seconds from now. On his other line. Because you have all the original phone numbers.”
Chapter 26
Westwood copied and pasted the six names and numbers to a new blank screen. The names were a standard American mixture. They could have been the first six up for any team in the Majors, or they could have been any six guys in line at the pawn shop, or the ER, or the first-class lounge at the airport. Half the numbers were cell phones, Reacher guessed, because he didn’t recognize the area codes, but there was a 773 for Chicago in there, and a 505 for somewhere in New Mexico, and a 901, which he figured could be Memphis, Tennessee.
Westwood put his phone in a dock on his desk and dialed the first number direct from his computer. There were speakers in the dock, and Reacher heard the beep-boop-bap of the electronic pulses, and then nothing but hiss, and then a pre-recorded voice, pitched somewhere between scolding and sympathetic.
The number was out of service.
Westwood hung up and checked the area code on his screen. He said, “That was a cell phone, in northern Louisiana, maybe Shreveport, or close by. The contract was probably terminated or canceled, as happens in the normal run of things, and the number will be reissued sooner or later.”
He dialed the second number.
Same thing. The dialing sounds, then nothing, then the phone company voice, its script apologetic, its tone faintly incredulous that anyone would do anything as pitifully dumb as try to call a telephone number that was currently out of service.
“A cell in Mississippi,” Westwood said. “Somewhere north. Oxford, probably. A lot of college students there. Maybe his parents threw him off the family plan.”
“Or maybe it was a burner phone,” Reacher said. “A pay-as-you-go from a drugstore, that ran out of minutes. Or was trashed. Maybe they’re all burners.”
“Possible,” Westwood said. “Bad guys have done that for years, to stop the government building a case. And these days citizens are learning to do the same thing. Especially the kind of citizens who call newspapers with hot tips about conspiracies. Such is the modern world.”
He dialed the third number. Another cell, according to the list of area codes, this one in Idaho.
And this one was answered.
A guy’s voice came over the speakers, loud and clear. It said, “Hello?”
Westwood sat up straight, and spoke to the screen. He said, “Good morning, sir. This is Ashley Westwood, from the LA Times, returning your call.”
“It is?”
“I apologize for the delay. I had some checking to do. But now I agree. What you told me has to be exposed. So I need to ask you some questions.”
“Well, yes, sure, that would be great.”
The voice was pitched closer to alto than tenor, and it was a little fast and shaky with nerves. A thin guy, Reacher thought, always quivering and vibrating. Thirty-five, maybe, or younger, but not much older. Could be Idaho born and bred, but probably wasn’t.
Westwood said, “First I need to start with a trust-builder. I need you to confirm the name of the private detective you hired.”
The voice said, “The name of the what?”
“The private detective.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Did you hire a private detective?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it has to be stopped.”
“What does?”
“What you told me about.”
“A private detective would be no good for that. They’d do the same to him they do to everyone else. As soon as they saw him. I mean, literally. I told you, it’s a line of sight thing. No one can avoid it. You don’t understand. The beam cannot be beaten.”
“So you didn’t hire a private detective?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you use another cell phone, with a 501 area code?”
“No, I don’t.”
Westwood hung up on him without another word. He said, “I think I remember that guy. Apparently our minds are being controlled by beams.”
Reacher said, “What kind of beams?”
“Mind-controlling beams. They come off the bottom of civilian airliners. The FAA requires them. That’s why they charge for checked bags now, so people will use carry-on instead, which leaves more space in the hold for the equipment. And the operator. He’s down there too, like an old-fashioned bomb aimer, zapping people. The guy in Idaho won’t go out unless it’s cloudy. He says obviously the flyover states are especially vulnerable. All part of the elitist conspiracy.”
“Except the most-flown-over state is nowhere near Idaho.”
“Where is it?”
“Pennsylvania.”
�
�Really?”
Chang said, “Yes, really, because there’s a lot of regular East Coast traffic, plus all the shuttles between D.C. and New York and Boston. Now can we move on? Can we dial the next number?”
Westwood dialed the next number, which was the fourth, which was 901 for Memphis. The first land line, probably. They heard the dialing noises, and then the ring tone, loud in the room.
The call was answered.
There was a hollow clonk as a heavy handset was lifted, and a male voice said, “Yes?”
Westwood sat up straight again, and ran through the same bullshit as before, his name, the LA Times, the returned call, the apology for the delay.
The voice said, “Sir, I’m not sure I understand.”
The guy was old, Reacher figured, slow-spoken and courtly, and if he wasn’t from Memphis, he was from somewhere very close by.
Westwood said, “You called me at the LA Times, two or three months ago, with something on your mind.”
The old guy said, “Sir, if I did, I surely have no recollection of it. And if I offended you in any way at all, why then, certainly I apologize.”
“No, you didn’t offend me, sir. No apology required. I want to know more about your concerns. That’s all.”
“Oh, I have very few concerns. My situation is blessed.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“I really can’t answer that question. I’m not even certain I did.”
Westwood glanced at Chang, and back to the screen, and took a breath ready to speak again, but there was a muffled sound on the speaker, and another clonk, apparently as the handset was wrestled away, because at that point a woman’s voice came on the line and said, “Who is this, please?”
Westwood said, “Ashley Westwood, ma’am, at the LA Times, returning a call from this number.”
“A recent call?”
“Two or three months ago.”
“That will have been my husband.”
“May I speak with him?”
“You just were.”
“I see. He didn’t remember the call.”
“He wouldn’t. Two or three months is a very long time.”
“Would you have any idea what the call might have been about?”
“Don’t you?”
Westwood didn’t answer.
The woman said, “I’m not judging you. If I could tune him out, I would. Are you a political writer or a science writer?”
Westwood said, “Science.”
“Then it will have been about granite countertops being radioactive. That’s this year’s topic. Which they are, as a matter of fact, but it’s a question of degree. I’m sure he asked you to write a story about it. You and many others.”
“Do you know how many others?”
“A small number compared to the population of the United States, but a large number compared to how many hours an old man should spend on the telephone.”
Westwood said, “Ma’am, is it possible he hired a private detective?”
The woman said, “For what?”
“To help him with his investigations into the granite situation.”
“No, it would be most unlikely.”
“Can you be certain?”
“The facts are not in dispute. There’s nothing to investigate. And he has no access to money. He couldn’t hire anybody.”
“Not even cash?”
“Not even. Don’t ask. And don’t get old.”
“Does your husband have a cell phone?”
“No.”
“Could he have gotten one, maybe from a drugstore?”
“No, he never leaves the house.”
“Have people died because of the granite?”
“He says so.”
“How many, exactly?”
“Oh, thousands.”
“OK,” Westwood said. “Thank you. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“My pleasure,” the woman said. “Makes a change, talking to someone else.”
They heard a slow pause, and a final clonk, as the big old handset was put back in its cradle.
Westwood said, “Welcome to my life.”
Chang said, “It’s better than hers.”
Westwood dialed the fifth number. Area code 773, which was Chicago. It rang and rang, way past the point where an answering machine would have cut it short. Then suddenly an out-of-breath woman came on the line, and said, “City Library, Lincoln Park, volunteer room.” She sounded very young and very cheerful, and very busy.
Westwood introduced himself and asked who he was talking to. The kid gave a name, no hesitation at all, but said she had never called the LA Times, and knew no private detectives. Westwood asked her if the phone they were on was used by other people, and she said yes, by all the volunteers. She said she was one of them. She said the volunteer room was where they left their coats and took their breaks. There was a phone in there, and time to use it, occasionally. She said the Lincoln Park library was a little ways north of downtown Chicago, and it had dozens of volunteers, always changing, young and old, men and women, all of them fascinating. But no, none of them seemed to be obsessed about anything scientific. Not overtly. Certainly not to the extent of calling distant newspapers.
Westwood checked his list, for the name against the 773 number, as recorded contemporaneously in the company database. He said, “Do you know a volunteer called McCann? I’m not entirely sure if it would be Mr. or Ms.”
“No,” the kid said. “I never heard that name.”
Westwood asked, “How long have you volunteered there?”
“A week,” the kid said, and Westwood thanked her, and she said he was welcome, and he said he guessed he should let her go, and she said well yes, she had things to do, and Westwood hung up.
He dialed the last number. Area code 505, which was New Mexico.
Chapter 27
The New Mexico number rang four times, and was answered by a man with a quiet, defeated voice. Westwood gave his name and ran through his standard preamble, the LA Times, the returned call, the apology for the delay, the sudden revival of interest in the issue. There was a long pause, and the quiet man on the other end of the line said, “That was then. It would be a different story now.”
Westwood said, “How so?”
“I know what I saw. At first no one would listen, including you, I’m afraid. But then the police department sent a detective. A young man, casually dressed, but keen. He said he was from a special confidential unit, and he took my report. He said I should sit tight and do nothing more. But then a week later I saw him in uniform, on traffic duty. He was writing parking tickets. He wasn’t a detective at all. The police department had fobbed me off with a rookie. To keep me quiet, I suppose. To head me off.”
Westwood said, “Tell me again exactly what you saw.”
“A spacecraft in the desert, just landed, with six passengers disembarking. They resembled humans, but weren’t. And the important thing was the craft looked to have no means of taking off again. It was a landing module only. Which meant those creatures were set to stay. Which begged a question. Were they the first? If not, how many came before them? How many are already here? Do they already control the police department? Do they already control everything?”
Westwood said nothing.
The quiet man said, “So now the story would be psychological, rather than purely scientific. How does an individual cope, when he knows something, but is forced to pretend he doesn’t?”
Westwood asked, “Did you hire a private detective?”
“I tried to. The first three I called wouldn’t take on extraterrestrial investigations. Then I realized it would be safer to lie low. That’s the issue now. The stress. I suppose many of us are in the same boat. We know, but we feel like the only one, because we can’t talk to each other. Maybe that’s what you should write about. The isolation.”
“What happened to the spaceship?”
“I couldn’t find it again. I imagine their all
ies hauled it away and hid it.”
“Has anyone died as a result?”
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
“How many?”
“One or two, conceivably. I mean, a controlled landing implies considerable energy. Flames from retro rockets, and so on. It might have been dangerous, inside a certain perimeter. And no one knows what they do later, after they settle in.”
“Do you have a cell phone?”
“No, the radiation is too dangerous. It can cause brain cancer.”
“Does the name Keever mean anything to you? Is he one of the folks you called?”
“No, I never heard that name.”
“Thank you,” Westwood said. “I’ll be back in touch.”
He hung up.
Chang said, “I know, welcome to your life.”
Westwood said, “Welcome to New Mexico.”
He deleted the third, the fourth, and the sixth numbers from his temporary list. He said, “Beam boy and granite guy and close encounters guy aren’t it, agreed? Which leaves us the abandoned cell phone in Louisiana, and the abandoned cell phone in Mississippi, and the volunteer room in Chicago. We cut the odds in half, at least.”
He neatened up the new three-line layout on his screen. At the top was the Louisiana number, which ten weeks ago had belonged to a person named Headley, according to the database, and below it was the Mississippi number, with the name Ramirez, and below that was the Chicago rec room, one user of which had been the elusive Mr. McCann, according to the database, or Ms. McCann, neither of which the out-of-breath kid had ever heard of.
Westwood printed the page and handed it to Chang.
She said, “Try the Maloney number again.”
Westwood dialed it, beep-boop-bap, and it rang and rang, and it wasn’t answered, and voice mail didn’t cut in.
He hung up, after another whole minute of trying.
Reacher said, “We need a list of everything you published in the last six months.”
Westwood said, “Why?”
“Because why else would the guy call you? He saw something you wrote. We need to know what it was.”
“That won’t help us find him.”
“I agree. It won’t. But we need to know what kind of guy we’re dealing with when we get there. We need to know what his problem is.”
